When the nation has dried its tears following the elimination from the Champions League of Arsenal and Manchester United, although in the latter's case the lachrymal source should have been checked for traces of unseemly mirth, cable and satellite viewers will have the chance tonight to confirm the evidence of their own eyes when Real Madrid meet Barcelona at the Bernabéu.

After Lionel Messi had scored all of Barcelona's goals in their 4-1 rout of Arsenal at the Camp Nou on Tuesday it was put to the losers' manager that the 22-year-old Argentinian was now the best footballer in the world. Arsène Wenger agreed. "By some distance," he said ruefully. Precisely by what distance should be gauged as the rival passions of Castile and Catalonia are once more unleashed this evening, when yet another hat-trick would bring Messi's total of goals for the season to 40.

The media's reaction to his performance against a half-strength Arsenal warranted a test for hyperbolic steroids. He is "football's Picasso", "a supernatural being who becomes more indescribable with every game". On Tuesday "Messi went beyond what any human could possibly achieve ... There is only one god: Messi." Barcelona never said that about Steve Archibald.

Even allowing for the fact that attacking players tend to peak sooner than they once did, partly because the game is so much more demanding in terms of speed and stamina, it is surely a little early to speak of Messi in such superlative terms. After all, he should have at least another 10 years at this level. If he is at the top of the world now where else is there to go but down?

Certainly Messi looks the most in-form forward in the Champions League, which offers a representative cross-section of the world's best players. A combination of impeccable technique, an impressive turn of speed and an equally quick footballing brain, rounded off by the ability to hit the target in the tightest of situations makes him the most watchable footballer since similar accolades were heaped upon Cristiano Ronaldo two seasons ago, when he scored 42 times for Manchester United.

Now at Real, Ronaldo was 22 at the start of 2007-08, Messi's age, and was always going to struggle to maintain that rate of achievement. He is hardly in decline, as events in the Bernabéu this evening may show, but the enthusiasm with which he was being compared to past giants now looks a mite premature. All right, Messi is a different footballing animal with his industrious and perceptive work off the ball, his willingness to stay on his feet and the total absence of a plaintive pout, but he still has to experience the inhibitions, not to mention the injuries, which are the lot of so many natural footballing geniuses once the exuberance of youth has faded.

It is to be hoped that Messi does not suffer the sort of tackle which Andoni Goikoetxea of Athletic Bilbao inflicted on Diego Maradona shortly after he had joined Barcelona from Boca Juniors in 1982, putting him out for four months. Four years later Maradona won the World Cup for Argentina to universal acclaim, although one or two folk in England demurred, and joined Pelé, Alfredo di Stéfano, Johan Cruyff and other usual suspects in the pantheon of the international game. By those standards Messi still has some way to go before he achieves godlike status, no matter what El Mundo may say.

"In 50 years everyone will still be talking about him," declared El Digital de Madrid this week. Maybe. Some names of 50 years ago are still recalled with awe even by those too young to have seen them at first hand. Di Stéfano is one, Ferenc Puskas another, and images of the young George Best are approaching that vintage. The way Messi destroyed Arsenal on Tuesday recalled Best's demolition of Benfica in Lisbon in a European Cup quarter‑final in 1966, when he scored twice as Manchester United won 5-1 and generally unnerved the opposition through the alacrity with which he took them on with the ball.

What tends to be forgotten is that in the semi-finals United went out tamely to Partizan Belgrade. José Mourinho's Inter will be aware of what Messi did to Arsenal and may try to isolate him, as Chelsea under Guus Hiddink did with some success last season.

But if Messi again does the business against Inter Picasso's ghost really will begin to wear a haunted look.